The sequel to Wilful Murder is underway and aiming to be finished by the end of 2025. It builds on the characters developed in the first novel and explores their future life together in the Sulphur Creek, Penguin Creek and Burnie are. Will Ann find another husband? is the burning question on everyone’s minds – well mine at least as my first novel, Wilful Murder, is yet to be published and only been read by a handful of people. My Mum is very keen to find out what happens next so while I am waiting for the results of a couple of competitions and coming up with a plan for how to get published, I’m going to start on the next book.

Firstly, I’ve invested in the software Scrivener. I hope this will save me a bit of time re-ordering and restructuring the chapters and scenes around. It will also enable me to attach the historical references to the relevant scenes. I wasn’t too unhappy with just using Word and Excel so I can always go back to that if I don’t find it more useful. I already have a bit of a plot outline from the historical record. There is a bit of research  and quite a bit of making up things still to be done. Like the first book it will be a case of writing a few pivotal scenes throughout the planned novel and then seeing what needs to be done to make it make sense and to connect everything together satisfactorily.

I’ve submitted Wilful Murder to the ASA/HQ prize and the ASA Mentorships award. I should know the outcome of those in May. If I’m unsuccessful in those then I will see if I can pitch the manuscript at the Hobart Writer’s festival and then later in the year at the ASA pitch workshop and the Tamar Valley Writer’s festival. Worst case scenario I wait until the two books are ‘finished’ and then try submitted them to publishers directly. I’ve heard that this is not the best approach and is hard to get noticed compared to getting involved in pitch opportunities. I’ll keep you posted.